


blood for blood

by Kissed_by_Circe



Category: The Tudors (TV)
Genre: Miscarriage, One Shot, Pregnancy, Second Chances
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-02
Updated: 2018-01-02
Packaged: 2019-02-27 10:47:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13246620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kissed_by_Circe/pseuds/Kissed_by_Circe
Summary: 29th January 1536Blood for blood, bone for bone, life for life.When King Henry was unconscious after his jousting accident, Anne prayed for his survival, paying for his life with the death of her unborn child. But this time, Henry dies, and Anne does not lose her babe.





	blood for blood

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I own neither the show, nor the people (do the screen rights of historic people belong to their descendants? Or can one just make a movie about everyone that's been dead for 100+ years? I’m not sure). 
> 
> Also, English is not my native language, so I apologise in advance for potential word-mix-ups and grammar or spelling mistakes  
> : )

29th January 1536

 

The cold of the stone tiles in front of the altar is sweeping trough her skirts and into her skin, but Anne doesn’t care, can’t care, not when everything is at stake. Her world is falling apart, and the only thing she can do now is pray. Pray for her husband, who has been unconscious for more than an hour now, and her daughter, who could be an orphan before nightfall. There are no tears on her face, for she is a queen, and queens do not weep over their kings, but the statue of the virgin before her is blurry still, and she is not sure if its eyes are blue or blood or gold. It is quiet, save for the soft words falling from her pale lips, whispered in English and Latin and French, trembling on her tongue until she is no longer sure which in which language she begs for Henry’s life.

 

If he dies, she’ll be without his protection, and she knows that the Seymours and all the other catholic lords will try and crown Mary, who will be 20 in a month’s time, who is the daughter of a Spanish royal, who can be married of and could have a child of her own within a year’s time, over her Elizabeth. They will brand her daughter a bastard and her a harlot, throw them out into the dirt, for every man to do with her as he pleases. She’ll be on her own, unprotected, defenceless, left to care for herself without any help.

 

She wonders if Catherine felt this way, decades ago, when she was a young widow and an even younger girl, left alone in a strange country with nothing but people she had to care for, and years ago, when she was set aside for a younger woman, and now she weeps, weeps for the queen they buried today, and for the princess that’s a bastard now, left behind by her father, left alone by her mother. It could happen to Elizabeth, if Henry dies. He can’t die.

 

And then she hears the voice. Ageless, genderless, soft and quietly, coming from the sombre corners of the small, dimly lit chapel, but the high walls throw it back and make it hall through the room.

 

_Blood for blood, bone for bone, life for life._

_There can only be one._

 

Anne does not know what the voice means, until she looks at the virgin again, the plump and rosy form of the child in her arms, and her own hands, wrapped around her rosary as if it could keep her from drowning, move to her belly, the slight bump under her gown, still invisible to most, still motionless, for she is gone only three or maybe four months, and she knows what this means.

 

One life for the other. One lives, one dies. It’s her husband or her child, the child that she can’t feel yet, the child that she could miscarry anyway, the child that’s not more than a piece of flesh at this moment. She can have other children, and Henry loves Elizabeth so much. He’ll forgive her the failure, if she tells him it was for her worry. And so she grasps her rosary again and starts praying, prays for her husband’s life, and whispers: “Save him, I beg you. Take everything. Take the child under my heart, take my life, if you wish, but save my daughter’s father.”

 

And then she starts bleeding.

 

*******

 

_Henry recovers._

 

_Their prince dies._

 

_Anne is executed._

 

*******

 

The blindfold is of silk, and Anne is thankful for it. A scratchier fabric might have been uncomfortable, she thinks, and almost laughs like a madwoman. She is to be executed, and her last thoughts are wasted on her comfort. At least she has done everything in her power for Elizabeth. Has asked Cranmer to look after her, has done everything Henry would want her to do during those last days to make sure that he wouldn’t hold a grunge against her and her daughter. The last thing she feels is the gush of wind on her neck as the sword swings towards her.

 

And then, to her utter surprise, she finds herself lying on the floor of the chapel, the crimson rimmed eyes of the virgin staring into her soul, hot hands grasping her shoulders, shaking her, a desperate voice on the door crying for help. “Anne? Anne! Can you hear me, my dearest?” It is George, her sweet George, picking her up like she is a feather and carrying her back to her chambers. Her hands curl around her stomach, the flesh soft under her silk skirts, and she feels its warmth, the life pulsing through it like small waves.

 

Her son. Her prince. He is strong, she realises, and when she meets the eyes of the virgin again, she whispers: “Keep my children save. Keep them save. Take my life, but keep them save.”

 

*******

 

_Henry does not wake up again._

_Their prince survives._

_Anne becomes his regent._

 

*******

 

He is born in summer, on a day as warm and velvety as his skin. They christen and crown him on the same day, and the queen names him Edmund, after his uncle, long dead and longer forgotten. His hair is as golden as Elizabeth of York’s has been, he has Henry Tudor’s grey eyes, and the Duke of Suffolk never calls the queen a whore or her children bastards, like he did in another time.

 

Both the Lady Mary and Jane Seymour are married of before the year ends, Mary to a younger son of the Duke of Norfolk, Jane to some minor noble. They are happy, and Ned, as his mother and sister call him, becomes an uncle before he can walk, when the Duchess of Somerset, who used to be a princess, welcomes a little girl. They call her Catherine, after her grandmother, after a warrior queen with fiery hair and a fierier heart, after a Spanish princess who became queen, after a lioness that never stopped protecting her cub.

 

 

And in the end, Henry’s death makes his second wife, his daughters and his mistress happier than his life ever could.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for all the kudos and comments :)


End file.
